Power quality describes a set of parameters of electric power and the load's ability to function properly under specific conditions. It is estimated that problems relating to power quality costs the European industry hundreds of billions of Euros annually. In contrast, financing for the prevention of these problems amount to fragments of these costs. Power Theories for Improved Power Quality addresses this imbalance by presenting and assessing a range of methods and problems related to improving the quality of electric power supply.
Focusing particularly on active compensators and the DSP based control algorithms, Power Theories for Improved Power Quality introduces the fundamental problems of electrical power. This introduction is followed by chapters which discuss:

'Power theories' including their historical development and application to practical problems,

operational principles of active compensator's DSP control based algorithms using examples and results from laboratory research, and

the key areas of application for these methods and suggested practical solutions.

Power Theories for Improved Power Quality is a key study resource for students in engineering and technical degrees as well as a reference for professional and practitioners in the electrical energy sector working with power quality.
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Firefighters and other emergency first responders use a huge variety of highly specialized and critical technologies for personal protection. These technologies, ranging from GPS to environmental sensing to communication devices, often run on different systems with separate power supplies and operating platforms. How these technological components function in a single synergistic system is of critical interest to firefighter end-users seeking efficient tools. Interoperable ESE states that a standardized platform for electronic safety equipment (ESE) is both logical and essential. This book develops an inventory of existing and emerging electronic equipment categorized by key areas of interest to the fire service, documents equipment performance requirements relevant to interoperability, including communications and power requirements, and develops an action plan toward the development of requirements to meet the needs of emergency responders. This book is intended for practitioners as a tool for understanding interoperability concepts and the requirements of the fire service landscape. It offers clear recommendations for the future to help ensure efficiency and safety with fire protection equipment. Researchers working in a related field will also find the book valuable.

"Dr. Jayshree Pandya, " founder of Risk Group LLC (http: //www.riskgroupllc.com), is ahead of the curve in addressing the changing global fundamentals of the emerging Global Age.

Global Age, and its changing global fundamentals has brought complex, chaotic, and turbulent times for every nation-where failures at all levels have come to become self-evident, repetitive, destructive, and potentially hopeless in nature and uncertainty. Nations are caught off guard.

From what is visible across nations today, the promise of progress and prosperity for all nations does not seem to have materialized in a Global Age. Instead of progress and prosperity, what is visible today is crisis and catastrophe that is overpowering and overwhelming the capability of most nations to meet their promise of progress and prosperity.

Nations are in crisis. This introductory book Global Age: NGIOA @ Risk addresses the global shifts and the changing global fundamentals of Global Age, to lay out much needed foundation of an integrated NGIOA risk governance framework for the coming tomorrow. This book will make a convincing case for the far-reaching need and understanding of global risk concepts, global risk fundamentals, and risk centric integrated NGIOA governance. The integrated NGIOA risk governance approach proposed and discussed in this initiative is rational, practical, and feasible. It will help create a dynamic, vibrant, and sustainable NGIOA economy of a Global Age. This initiative is a first step towards that.

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The brief will describe how to develop a risk analysis applied to a project , through a sequence of steps: risk management planning, risk identification, risk classification, risk assessment, risk quantification, risk response planning, risk monitoring and control, process close out and lessons learning. The project risk analysis and management process will be applied to large engineering projects, in particular related to the oil and gas industry. The brief will address the overall range of possible events affecting the project moving from certainty (project issues) through uncertainty (project risks) to unpredictability (unforeseeable events), considering both negative and positive events. Some quantitative techniques (simulation, event tree, Bayesian inference, etc.) will be used to develop risk quantification. The brief addresses a typical subject in the area of project management, with reference to large engineering projects concerning the realization of large plants and infrastructures. These projects are characterized by a high level of change, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. The brief represents an extension of the material developed for the course Project Risk Analysis and Management of the Master in Strategic Project Management (Erasmus Mundus) developed jointly by Politecnico di Milano, Heriot Watt University (Edimburgh) and Umea (Sweden). The brief may be used both in courses addressing project management subjects and by practitioners as a guide for developing an effective project risk management plan.

"Applications of Finite Element Methods for Reliability Studies" on ULSI Interconnections provides a detailed description of the application of finite element methods (FEMs) to the study of ULSI interconnect reliability. Over the past two decades the application of FEMs has become widespread and continues to lead to a much better understanding of reliability physics.

To help readers cope with the increasing sophistication of FEMs applications to interconnect reliability, "Applications of Finite Element Methods for Reliability Studies on ULSI Interconnections" will: introduce the principle of FEMs;review numerical modeling of ULSI interconnect reliability;describe the physical mechanism of ULSI interconnect reliability encountered in the electronics industry; anddiscuss in detail the use of FEMs to understand and improve ULSI interconnect reliability from both the physical and practical perspective, incorporating the Monte Carlo method.

A full-scale review of the numerical modeling methodology used in the study of interconnect reliability highlights useful and noteworthy techniques that have been developed recently. Many illustrations are used throughout the book to improve the reader s understanding of the methodology and its verification. Actual experimental results and micrographs on ULSI interconnects are also included.

"Applications of Finite Element Methods for Reliability Studies" on ULSI Interconnections is a good reference for researchers who are working on interconnect reliability modeling, as well as for those who want to know more about FEMs for reliability applications. It gives readers a thorough understanding of the applications of FEM to reliability modeling and an appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of various numerical models for interconnect reliability."

The importance of power system reliability is demonstrated when our electricity supply is disrupted, whether it decreases the comfort of our free time at home or causes the shutdown of our companies and results in huge economic deficits. The objective of Assessment of Power System Reliability is to contribute to the improvement of power system reliability. It consists of six parts divided into twenty chapters. The first part introduces the important background issues that affect power system reliability. The second part presents the reliability methods that are used for analyses of technical systems and processes. The third part discusses power flow analysis methods, because the dynamic aspect of a power system is an important part of related reliability assessments. The fourth part explores various aspects of the reliability assessment of power systems and their parts. The fifth part covers optimization methods. The sixth part looks at the application of reliability and optimization methods. Assessment of Power System Reliability has been written in straightforward language that continues into the mathematical representation of the methods. Power engineers and developers will appreciate the emphasis on practical usage, while researchers and advanced students will benefit from the simple examples that can facilitate their understanding of the theory behind power system reliability and that outline the procedure for application of the presented methods.

This monograph and translation from the Russian describes in detail and comments on the fundamentals of metrology. The basic concepts of metrology, the principles of the International System of Units SI, the theory of measurement uncertainty, the new methodology of estimation of measurement accuracy on the basis of the uncertainty concept, as well as the methods for processing measurement results and estimating their uncertainty are discussed from the modern position. It is shown that the uncertainty concept is compatible with the classical theory of accuracy. The theory of random uncertainties is supplemented with their most general description on the basis of generalized normal distribution; the instrumental systematic errors are presented in connection with the methodology of normalization of the metrological characteristics of measuring instruments. The information about modern systems of traceability is given. All discussed theoretical principles and calculation methods are illustrated with examples.

This SpringerBrief reviews current home fire sprinkler system costs in one- and two-family dwellings, mobile homes, and multifamily residential buildings up to four stories. It provides individual community data and qualitative data gained through interviews with community officials, builders, and fire sprinkler contractors. The systems are reviewed against a 2008 benchmark study in order to analyze how the increasingly widespread adoption of national sprinkler ordinances impacts system cost. Using 51 homes in 17 communities, the authors discuss the impact of sprinkler ordinances on home fire sprinkler system cost, including extent of coverage, system types, water sources, permit and inspection fees, and statewide requirements. Methods and community comparisons are presented with the analysis. Home Fire Sprinkler Assessment is intended for practitioners working with sprinkler codes and building regulation safety. Researchers working in a related field will also find the book valuable.

Disaster risk is increasing, not only in number of events, but also in incurred losses. Such increases are being driven also by the growing exposure of assets, due to the rapid urban growth, because vulnerability decreases as countries develop, but not enough to compensate. The situation will be more and more critical, due to the growth of the amount of the building stock. Thus we need new initiatives to foster upgrading of existing building and enhancement of land planning strategies. "Safe Home" scheme is aimed at increasing urban safety requirements against hazards under an advanced labeling approach. It provides a quantitative evaluation of building performance through an objective, reproducible approach, assessing risks at a land, urban and building scale. Aim of this rating system is to result in useful information to different users, like land planning decision makers, owners, purchasers, tenants or property and real estate managers.

In response to the growing importance of power system security and reliability, Transmission Grid Security proposes a systematic and probabilistic approach for transmission grid security analysis. The analysis presented uses probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) and takes into account the power system dynamics after severe faults. In the method shown in this book the power system states (stable, not stable, system breakdown, etc.) are connected with the substation reliability model. In this way it is possible to: estimate the system-wide consequences of grid faults; identify a chain of events that might lead to blackout; and rank the importance of different substation components at the system level. Transmission Grid Security also presents the main features and basic mathematics of PSA. It provides the reader with up-to-date knowledge of the regulatory issues affecting the security of transmission grids in Europe. Transmission Grid Security gives a practical method for the security analysis of transmission grids, making it a valuable text for engineers and system operators, as well as postgraduate students. It includes basic information and detailed modules for creating a reliability model that takes into account all the basic operations and components needed after grid faults.

Safety and Risk Modeling presents the latest theories and methods of safety and risk with an emphasis on safety and risk in modeling. It covers applications in several areas including transportations and security risk assessments, as well as applications related to current topics in safety and risk. Safety and Risk Modeling is a valuable resource for understanding the latest developments in both qualitative and quantitative methods of safety and risk analysis and their applications in operating environments. Each chapter has been written by active researchers or experienced practitioners to bridge the gap between theory and practice and to trigger new research challenges in safety and risk. Topics include: safety engineering, system maintenance, safety in design, failure analysis, and risk concept and modelling. Postgraduate students, researchers, and practitioners in many fields of engineering, operations research, management, and statistics will find Safety and Risk Modeling a state-of-the-art survey of reliability and quality in design and practice.

Reliability and Safety of Complex Technical Systems and Processes offers a comprehensive approach to the analysis, identification, evaluation, prediction and optimization of complex technical systems operation, reliability and safety. Its main emphasis is on multistate systems with ageing components, changes to their structure, and their components reliability and safety parameters during the operation processes. Reliability and Safety of Complex Technical Systems and Processes presents integrated models for the reliability, availability and safety of complex non-repairable and repairable multistate technical systems, with reference to their operation processes and their practical applications to real industrial systems. The authors consider variables in different operation states, reliability and safety structures, and the reliability and safety parameters of components, as well as suggesting a cost analysis for complex technical systems. Researchers and industry practitioners will find information on a wide range of complex technical systems in Reliability and Safety of Complex Technical Systems and Processes. It may prove an easy-to-use guide to reliability and safety evaluations of real complex technical systems, both during their operation and at the design stages.

"Recent Advances in System Reliability" discusses developments in modern reliability theory such as signatures, multi-state systems and statistical inference. It describes the latest achievements in these fields, and covers the application of these achievements to reliability engineering practice.

The chapters cover a wide range of new theoretical subjects and have been written by leading experts in reliability theory and its applications. The topics include: concepts and different definitions of signatures (D-spectra), their properties and applications to reliability of coherent systems and network-type structures; Lz-transform of Markov stochastic process and its application to multi-state system reliability analysis; methods for cost-reliability and cost-availability analysis of multi-state systems; optimal replacement and protection strategy; and statistical inference.

"Recent Advances in System Reliability" presents many examples to illustrate the theoretical results. Real world multi-state systems, such as power generation and transmission, refrigeration, and production systems, are considered in the form of case studies, making the book a useful resource for researchers and postgraduate students."

An apparently appropriate control scheme for PEM fuel cells may actually lead to an inoperable plant when it is connected to other unit operations in a process with recycle streams and energy integration. PEM Fuel Cells with Bio-Ethanol Processor Systems presents a control system design that provides basic regulation of the hydrogen production process with PEM fuel cells. It then goes on to construct a fault diagnosis system to improve plant safety above this control structure. PEM Fuel Cells with Bio-Ethanol Processor Systems is divided into two parts: the first covers fuel cells and the second discusses plants for hydrogen production from bio-ethanol to feed PEM fuel cells. Both parts give detailed analyses of modeling, simulation, advanced control, and fault diagnosis. They give an extensive, in-depth discussion of the problems that can occur in fuel cell systems and propose a way to control these systems through advanced control algorithms. A significant part of the book is also given over to computer-aided engineering software tools that can be used to evaluate the dynamic performance of the overall plant. PEM Fuel Cells with Bio-Ethanol Processor Systems is intended for use by researchers and advanced students on chemical, electrical-electronic and mechanical engineering courses in which dynamics and control are incorporated with the traditional steady-state coverage of flowsheet synthesis, engineering economics and optimization.

The measurement of dependability attributes on real systems is a very time-consuming and costly affair, making analytical or simulation modeling the only viable solutions. Dependability of Networked Computer-based Systems explores reliability, availability and safety modeling of networked computer-based systems used in life-critical applications such as avionics, nuclear power plants, automobiles and chemical process industries. Dependability of Networked Computer-based Systems gives an overview of basic dependability modeling concepts and addresses new challenges in dependability modeling of networked computer-based systems, as well as new trends, their capabilities and limitations. It covers a variety of dependability modeling methods: stochastic processes, Markov and semi-Markov models, response-time distribution, stochastic Petri-net-based modeling formalisms, and Monte Carlo simulation models. Dependability of Networked Computer-based Systems provides students and researchers with a detailed overview of dependability models and analysis techniques. Practicing engineers will also find this text a useful guide to decision-making based on system dependability at the design, operation and maintenance stages.

This book presents Ulrich Beck, one of the world's leading sociologists and social thinkers, as a Pioneer in Cosmopolitan Sociology and Risk Society. His world risk society theory has been confirmed by recent disasters - events that have shaken modern society to the core, signaling the end of an era in which comprehensive insurance could keep us safe. Due to its own successes, modern society now faces failure: while in the past experiments were conducted in a lab, now the whole world is a test bed. Whether nuclear plants, genetically modified organisms, nanotechnology - if any of these experiments went wrong, the consequences would have a global impact and would be irreversible. Beck recommends ignoring the mathematical morality of expert opinions, which seek to identify the level of a given risk by calculating the probability of its occurrence. Instead, man's fear of collapse should offer an opportunity for international cooperation and a cosmopolitan turn in the social sciences.

Machine vision technology has revolutionised the process of automated inspection in manufacturing. The specialist techniques required for inspection of natural products, such as food, leather, textiles and stone is still a challenging area of research. Topological variations make image processing algorithm development, system integration and mechanical handling issues much more complex. The practical issues of making machine vision systems operate robustly in often hostile environments together with the latest technological advancements are reviewed in this volume. Features: - Case studies based on real-world problems to demonstrate the practical application of machine vision systems. - In-depth description of system components including image processing, illumination, real-time hardware, mechanical handling, sensing and on-line testing. - Systems-level integration of constituent technologies for bespoke applications across a variety of industries. - A diverse range of example applications that a system may be required to handle from live fish to ceramic tiles. Machine Vision for the Inspection of Natural Products will be a valuable resource for researchers developing innovative machine vision systems in collaboration with food technology, textile and agriculture sectors. It will also appeal to practising engineers and managers in industries where the application of machine vision can enhance product safety and process efficiency.

Advanced communications and information technologies provide the basis for operational risk management. In order to support managers in real-time risk assessment and decision-making, the advanced technologies must be complemented by an appropriate reasoning logic. This book presents such a reasoning logic for operational risk management. Chapter 1 discusses the need for operational risk management and the feasibility of its use based upon advances in sensing, mobile communications, and satellite positioning technologies. Chapter II presents a reasoning logic for operational risk management that capitalizes upon these developments. Chapter III illustrates the integration of the reasoning logic in hypermedia, multimedia, and virtual reality systems, coupled with the capabilities provided by the Internet. Chapters IV-VI illustrate the realism of operational risk management for hazardous material transportation, emergency response, air raid command, and emergency response at a nuclear power generation facility. The book closes with an experimental assessment of the logic and associated decision aids in Chapter VII. Audience: Researchers, who will find the most recent advances in operational risk management with experimental assessments. Practitioners, who are provided with a detailed description of operational risk management and the latest advances in information and communications technologies to implement this new approach for managing risks in operational settings, such as transportation of hazardous materials and emergency response. Students, who will learn the basic concepts in theory and practice of building models for decision and risk analysis, and embedding them into commercial software as decision support systems.

Compiled by an experienced practitioner in the field, this book contains definitions of the major terms used in reliability engineering and software assessment. Approximately 2,000 definitions have been carefully selected from standards and literature published by such leading institutions as the IEEE and IEC. Alternative definitions of the same term are given where relevant, enabling readers to compare and contrast, thereby giving useful insights into different aspects of the same term. Extensive cross-referencing makes the book both easy to use and practical.

A quarter of the century has elapsed since I gave my first course in structural reliability to graduate students at the University of Waterloo in Canada. Since that time on I have given many courses and seminars to students, researchers, designers, and site engineers interested in reliability. I also participated in and was responsible for numerous projects where reliability solutions were required. During that period, the scope of structural reliability gradually enlarged to become a substantial part of the general reliability theory. First, it is apparent that bearing structures should not be isolated objectives of interest, and, consequently, that constntCted facilities should be studied. Second, a new engineering branch has emerged -reliability engineering. These two facts have highlighted new aspects and asked for new approaches to the theory and applications. I always state in my lectures that the reliability theory is nothing more than mathematized engineering judgment. In fact, thanks mainly to probability and statistics, and also to computers, the empirical knowledge gained by Humankind's construction experience could have been transposed into a pattern of logic thinking, able to produce conclusions and to forecast the behavior of engineering entities. This manner of thinking has developed into an intricate network linked by certain rules, which, in a way, can be considered a type of reliability grammar. We can discern many grammatical concepts in the general structure of the reliability theory.

This book is concerned with Intelligent Control methods and applications. The field of intelligent control has been expanded very much during the recent years and a solid body of theoretical and practical results are now available. These results have been obtained through the synergetic fusion of concepts and techniques from a variety of fields such as automatic control, systems science, computer science, neurophysiology and operational research. Intelligent control systems have to perform anthropomorphic tasks fully autonomously or interactively with the human under known or unknown and uncertain environmental conditions. Therefore the basic components of any intelligent control system include cognition, perception, learning, sensing, planning, numeric and symbolic processing, fault detection/repair, reaction, and control action. These components must be linked in a systematic, synergetic and efficient way. Predecessors of intelligent control are adaptive control, self-organizing control, and learning control which are well documented in the literature. Typical application examples of intelligent controls are intelligent robotic systems, intelligent manufacturing systems, intelligent medical systems, and intelligent space teleoperators. Intelligent controllers must employ both quantitative and qualitative information and must be able to cope with severe temporal and spatial variations, in addition to the fundamental task of achieving the desired transient and steady-state performance. Of course the level of intelligence required in each particular application is a matter of discussion between the designers and users. The current literature on intelligent control is increasing, but the information is still available in a sparse and disorganized way.

The changing role of industry, the trend towards automation, the in creased cost of raw materials and labour rates all emphasize the need for improved quality of manufacture which will lead to better reliability, reduced maintenance costs and incidence of failure, as well as greater consumer confidence. Many countries, including Japan, are noted for their high quality of manufacture. This has helped them monopolize the world radio and television market and achieve great in-roads into the motor industry. If other economies are to compete effectively against such competition, then improvements in quality and performance of products are necessary. The need for control of quality embraces many fields from design, manufacture, function testing and inspection, through to an understand ing of sampling procedures and sampling theory, embracing both employee and management responsibilities to the maintenance of quality. The aim of this book is to give an understanding of industrial quality control. The techniques described have been selected so that they may be applied to industrial problems. It is hoped and expected that these methods will lead to improvements in quality and economics of manufac ture, thus leading to increased productivity and profitability. 9 1 The Need for Quality Control The major goals for quality control are manifold and include a need to determine the real functional tolerances required for engineering specifications and to provide a plan for control of the quality of the results of a process related to time. This is normally achieved by statistical or control chart methods."

When data is collected on failure or survival a list of times is obtained. Some of the times are failure times and others are the times at which the subject left the experiment. These times both give information about the performance of the system. The two types will be referred to as failure and censoring times (cf. Smith section 5). * A censoring time, t, gives less information than a failure time, for it is * known only that the item survived past t and not when it failed. The data is tn and of censoring thus collected as a list of failure times t , . . . , l * * * times t , t , . . . , t * 1 z m 2. 2. Classical methods The failure times are assumed to follow a parametric distribution F(t;B) with and reliability R(t;B). There are several methods of estimating density f(t;B) the parameter B based only on the data in the sample without any prior assumptions about B. The availability of powerful computers and software packages has made the method of maximum likelihood the most popular. Descriptions of most methods can be found in the book by Mann, Schafer and Singpurwalla (1974). In general the method of maximum likelihood is the most useful of the classical approaches. The likelihood approach is based on constructing the joint probability distrilmtion or density for a sample.

With the end of the Cold War, new opportunities for interaction have opened up between the United States and the countries of the Former Soviet Union. Many of these important initiatives involve the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the Ministry of the Russian Federation for Atomic Energy (MINA TOM). Currently, collaboration is under way which involves reactor safety, the disposition of fissile materials from the weapons program, radioactive waste disposal, and the safety of nuclear warheads. Another fruitful area of interchange resulted from the radiochemical storage tank accident at the site of the Siberian Chemical Compound at Tomsk-7 in 1993. DOE and MINATOM agreed to meet and exchange information about the accident for the purposes of improving safety. A meeting on the Tomsk tank accident was held in Hanford, Washington in 1993, followed by a second meeting in st. Petersburg, Russia in 1994 in which the agenda expanded to include radiochemical processing safety. A third exchange took place in 1995 in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and additional papers were presented on nonreactor nuclear safety. Following a planning session in 1996 in Seattle, Washington, it was decided to hold a fourth technical exchange on the broader subject of nuclear materials safety management. Through a grant from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Disarmament Programme, the meeting took place on March 17- 21, 1997, in Amarillo, Texas as a NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) through grant no. DISRM 961315.

This book contains a selection of papers presented at the "European Robotics and Intelligent Systems Conference" (EURISCON '91) held in Corfu. Greece (June 23-28. 1991). It is devoted to the analysis. design and applications of technological systems with built-in intelligence achieved through appropriate blending of mathematical, symbolic. sensing. computer processing. and feedback control concepts. methods and software / hardware tools. System intelligence includes human-like capabilities such as learning. observation. perception. interpretation. reasoning. planning. decision making. and action. Integrated intelligent decision and control systems obey Saridis' prinCiple of Increasing Precision with Decreasing Intelligence (IPDI). and have a hierarchical structure with three basic levels. namely Organization. Coordination. and Execution Levels. As we proceed from the organization to the execution level. the precision about the jobs to be completed increases and accordingly the intelligence reqUired for these jobs decreases. As an example. it is mentioned here that in an intelligent robotic system the organization tasks can be realized using a neural net. the coordination tasks by a Petri net. and the execution tasks by local sensors and actuators. The field of intelligent systems is a new interdisciplinary field with continuously increasing interest and expansion. It is actually the outcome of the synergetic interaction and cooperation of classical fields such as system theory. control theory. artificial intelligence. operational research. information theory. electronics. communications. and others.